Виктор Пелевин - Buddha's Little Finger

Most of the champagne caught Anna on her tunic and skirt. I had been aiming for her face, but at the final moment some strange impulse of chastity must have forced me to divert the flow downwards.

She looked at the dark blotch on the chest of her tunic and shrugged.

‘You are an idiot,’ she said calmly. ‘You should be in a home for the mentally disturbed.’

‘You are not alone in thinking that,’ I said, setting the empty bottle on the table.

An oppressive silence fell. It seemed to me entirely pointless to engage in any further attempts to clarify our relations, and sitting opposite each other in silence was even more stupid. I think that Anna was feeling the same; probably in the entire restaurant only the fat black fly methodically beating itself against the window-pane knew what to do next. The situation was saved by one of the officers sitting at the next table - by this time I had completely forgotten that they even existed, but I am sure that in the wider sense they also had no idea of what to do next. The one who

had been injecting himself rose to his feet and approached us.

‘My dear sir,’ I heard him say in a voice filled with feeling, my dear sir, would you mind if I were to ask you a question?’

‘Not at all, please do,’ I said, turning to face him. I le was holding an open wallet in his hands, which he glanced into as he spoke as though it contained the crib for his speech.

‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ he said. ‘Staff Captain Lambovsky. By pure chance I happened to overhear part of your conversation. I was not eavesdropping, naturally. You were simply talking loudly.’

‘And what of it?’

‘Do you genuinely believe that all women are a dream?’ You know,’ I replied, trying to speak as politely as possiblе, ‘that is really a very complex question. In short, if one regards the entire Universe as no more than a dream, then there is no reason at all for placing women in any kind of special Category.’

‘So they are a dream, then.’ he said sadly. ‘I feared as much. But I have a photo here. Take a look.’

He held out a photograph. It showed a girl with an ordinary face sitting beside a potted geranium. I noticed that Anna also stole a glance at the photograph out of the corner of her eye.

‘This is my fiancee, Nyura,’ said the staff captain. ‘That is, she was my fiancee. Where she is now I have not the slightest idea. When I recall those bygone days, it all seems so very real. The skating rink at the Patriarch’s Ponds, or summer out at the estate… But in reality it has all disappeared, disappeared irretrievably - and if it had all never been, what would have been changed in the world? Do you understand how terrible that is? It makes no difference.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I understand, believe me.’

‘So it would seem that she is a dream too?’

‘So it would seem.’ I echoed,

‘Aha!’ he said with satisfaction, and glanced round at his companion who was smiling as he smoked. ‘Then must I understand you to be saying, my dear sir, that my fiancee Nyura sucks?’

‘What?’

‘Well, now,’ said Staff Captain Lambovsky, glancing round once more at his companion, ‘if life is but a dream, then all women are also no more than visions in dreams. My fiancée Nyura is a woman, and therefore she is also a vision in a dream.’

‘Let us assume so. What of it?’

‘Was it not you who only a moment ago said that the word «suck» in the idiom «all women suck» is derived from the word «succubus». Let us assume that Nyura excites me as a woman, and is at the same time a vision in a dream - does it not inevitably follow that she also sucks? It does. And are you aware, my dear sir, of the consequences of speaking words of this kind in public?’

I looked closely at him. He was about thirty years old, he had a mousy moustache, a high forehead with a receding hairline and blue eyes; the impression of concentrated provincial demonism produced by the combination of these features was so powerful that I experienced a distinct sense of irritation.

‘Now listen,’ I said, imperceptibly slipping my hand into my pocket and taking hold of the handle of my Browning, ‘you really are taking things too far. I have not had the honour of being acquainted with your fiancee, so I cannot possibly possess any opinions regarding her.’

‘Nobody dares to make assumptions,’ said the staff captain, ‘from which it follows that my Nyura is a bitch. It is very sad, but I can see only one way out of the situation which has arisen.’

Fixing me with a piercing gaze, he placed his hand on his holster and slowly unbuttoned it. I was about to fire, but I remembered that the holster contained his syringe-box. It was all actually becoming rather funny.

‘Did you wish to give me an injection?’ I asked. ‘Thank you, but I cannot tolerate morphine. In my opinion it dulls the brain.’

The staff captain jerked his hand away from the holster and glanced at his companion, a plump young man with a face that was red from the heat, who had been following our conversation closely.

‘Stand back Georges,’ he said, rising ponderously from the table and drawing his sabre from its scabbard. ‘I will give this gentleman his injection myself.

God only knows what would have happened next. In another second I should probably have shot him, with all the less regret since the colour of his face clearly indicated a tendency towards apoplexy, and he could hardly have been fated to live long. But at this point something unexpected occurred.

I heard a loud shout from the direction of the door.

‘Everybody stay right where they are! One movement and I shoot!’

I looked round. Standing in the doorway was a broad-shouldered man in a grey two-piece suit and a crimson Russian shirt. Strength of will was stamped on his powerful face - if it had not been spoiled by his short, receding chin, it would have looked magnificent in an antique bas-relief. His head was completely shaven, and he was holding a revolver in each hand. The two officers froze where they stood; the shaven-headed gentleman approached our table and stopped, setting his revolvers to their heads. The staff captain began blinking rapidly.

‘Stand still,’ said the stranger. ‘Stand still… Easy now…’

Suddenly his face was distorted by a grimace of fury and he pressed the triggers twice. They clicked and misfired.

‘Have you heard of Russian roulette, gentlemen?’ he asked. Hey?’

‘Yes.’ answered the officer with the red complexion.

‘You may regard yourselves at the present moment as playing that game, and that I am your croupier. I can inform you confidentially that the third chamber in each drum holds a live round. Please indicate whether you understand what I have said as quickly as possible.’

‘How?’ asked the staff captain.

‘Raise your hands.’ said the shaven-headed gentleman.

The officers raised their hands; the clatter of the sabre falling to the floor made me wince.

‘Get out of here,’ said the stranger, ‘and please do not look behind you on your way. I cannot tolerate that.’

The officers gave him no reason to repeat himself - they half-drunk glasses of champagne and a papyrosa smoking in the ashtray. When they had left, the stranger placed his revolvers on our table and leaned towards Anna; it seemed to me that there was something very favourable in the way she returned his gaze.

‘Anna.’ he said, raising her hand to his lips, ‘what a great joy it is to see you here.’

‘Hello, Grigory,’ said Anna. ‘Have you been in town long?’

‘I have just this moment arrived,’ he answered.

‘Are those your trotters outside the window?’

‘They are.’ said the shaven-headed gentleman.